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Blogging 101

by Kulin Marketing

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Technocrat's web design is excellent, and it offers great navigation between WebPage search categories and interactive buttons that Icerocket does not (top blogs & twitter). However, IceRocket offers some functionality that Technorati does not. Specifically its search integration with twitter and myspace, that enables user’s searches to extend to micro-blogs and social networking comments/posts (not only blogs). When I used both search engines to search blogs using the phrase, “non profit cancer”, technoarti provided a much shorter result list, but the results were much more related to what I was looking for. Technorati searched the entire phrase, unless I separated keywords with commas. IceRocket automatically searched keyword by keyword, unless I manually typed quotation marks around my phrase. For example, the first blog result in Technorati was National Breast Cancer’s blog, a non profit health organization focused on the cancer cause. On IceRocket, the first blog result was a independent blogger’s single entry about cancer patient experiences. It is clear that Technorati produces a better, more relevant, result list for those searching for blogs.
The Susan G. Komen blog is an example of a non-profit health organization’s corporate blog. It is unclear if the content writer(s) are in-house staff, such as an executive or group blogging team, or a ghost writer because the author is never reviled in entries. Its content is on the narrow topic of Breast Cancer and entries focus on research, news, corporate events, and a large number on the organizations recent (now past) accomplishments as non-profit agency. Its purpose seems to be to use this space to make positive corporate news more positive, in an attempt to strengthen brand image among their blog readers. Its mission seems to be to validate the organizations success to donors, while also displaying positive news stories and corporate accomplishments to potential donors. This makes it tone honest, but not passionate (it is almost like a non-bias reporter). However, since the last entry was written in august, and the posting frequency is extremely low (before August 2009, last entry was November 2008), Susan G. Komen is not adequately leveraging this space to truly meet these objectives of retention and acquisition. Higher frequency could allow for greater ability in obtaining the brand image of a successful and leading breast cancer organization. It would not only provide more content, and therefore more opportunities for readers to engage, but if entries continue to be consistently relevant to breast cancer, this blog could be a place where constituents go to learn about issues, events and news related to this topic. Therefore, there is an opportunity that Susan G. Komen is not taking advantage of. By committing more time and resources to this blog the organization could strengthen its brand equity, and name association to the cause of breast cancer, in the minds of consumers.
The Livestrong corporate group blog is written by a disclosed specific group of staff writers who create content on a regular basis (at least one entry per day) on the consistent topic of prostate cancer. The blog is interactive, with multiple blog entries posted in the form of Vlogs (Video blogs) that bring the entries to life, and project the blogs passion on this topic in a visual way. The the entry topics include news and events, but are primarily direct stories from prostate cancer patients and/or survivors. The nature of this content strategy creates a space where patients, survivors, and advocate supporters can meet, connect, and engage on relevant and current stories in a very passionate online space. There are a large number of comments left by readers of the blog, and these are shared openly with all visitors on the blog’s about page (main blog page). This transparency of comments can encourage blog readers to feel more confident about engaging on this blog, when they notice how many others have. Livestrong has created a social space, specifically for this audience to use, not simply read. Additionally, the right sidebar of blog webpage is the only place where corporate accomplishments and events are posted. This separation clarifies, and adds credibility to the blog’s intention, and allows its audience to choose which content interests them the most, instead of attempting to control their interests by not offering the audience sections to choose from.
I choose the descriptive blog name “Elizabeth Kulin Marketing Blog” because my main website url is “Elizabeth Kulin Marketing” and it is important to transfer my consistent brand name across each webpage of my website. Doing so enables my visitors to know that they are still on my site while they navigate between pages. I created the blog, and its various pages, in the website software ‘iweb’. It is important that the url of my blog relate to my blog name, and is omitted of any 3 rd party web company’s name. By creating it in iweb and uploading it via my host service, the url will be consist with my other WebPages (for example, www.elizabethkulinmarketing.com/contact). This is important from a branding and SEO standpoint. Not only will my name and url closely relate to each other, my audience will be able to find my blog easier, and be assured that this is my blog, during searches via blog search engines.
Since the objective of my website and my blog are similar (personal branding in order to display knowledge and expertise to future potential employers and consulting customers) it was important that my blog design resemble my other website pages. At the same time, since my blog is a different type of space, in relationship to my other webpages, its looks and feel is a little different to show visitors that this is a different space. I tried to carry over the use of white space, overall design layout, colors and fonts. To personalize it, and disclose myself as an independent blogger, I included a picture of myself on the about blog page. This picture is the same image on other online professional sites (linkedin, slideshare, twitter, etc.), which are similar to my blog in target audience and mission objective. I included interactive buttons linked to these other professional online sites so my visitors can learn more about me, and further validate my accusations. Furthermore, each blog post will begin with a short description of the entry. This will allow the reader to decide if an entry is of interest to them and/or worth their time. In the future, I hope to gather ideas from other great bloggers on more interactive tools to implement, and also gain greater knowledge on how to make my blog shorter, while still consistently relevant, for the benefit of my audience.
Since my blog audience is future potential employers and/or customers it is important that my content relates to them. My content strategy is to validate my knowledge in marketing for healthcare non-profits, and display the value that hiring me could bring them. Specific blog tactics that I plan to use are writing on other similar blogs, using an honest and passionate tone, focus on a narrow topic, give credit to other bloggers and post helpful resources for my audience (such as books on the topic of non-profit marketing). I also plan to incorporate marketing tactics such as SEO and social media integration. In this first entry, I set expectations with my readers about this blog’s intent, position, author, and frequency. It is important to be transparent and upfront about these context settings. Additionally, this introduction entry is an appropriate space to talk about myself in the first person, and boost past educational and professional accomplishments. This is unlike future entries where content will be more relevant to sharing knowledge on specific topics that my audience can hopefully use, benefit from, and find personal value in reading. (Please visit my website to read entry #1 by clicking on slide image, or copying and pasting the following URL: www.Elizabethkulinmarketing.com)
During both of my engagements, with Susan G. Komen and the Livestrong bloggers, I commended and gave credit to the blogger for posting information that is important to their audience. By doing so, it might encourage similar stories by the bloggers. It also validated their entries, time, and content. In the future, when commenting on other blogs, I will include a hyperlink to my blog as a tactic to promote and increase traffic for my own blog.
Currently, these are the different functionality tools that I have integrated into my blog with the help of iweb. All of these tools either make it easier for my readers to search within, search for, or engage with my blog. The search, archive and page navigation arrows allow easier blog pages and content topics. The Rss Feed, Twitter follow, and tag cloud functions are both interactive and increase the ability of locating my blog for my readers. For example, the Rss Feed lets readers easily land on my blog in fewer clicks than a search engine search. Additionally, by following me on twitter, readers can choose to go to an outside extended space (twitter) to learn about what I am blogging about and decided from my microblogs if taking the time to visit my blog is of value to them (it also increase the number of follower that my twitter handle has, which strengthens my online brand in credibility and awareness). Furthermore, by using www.tagcloud-generator.com I was able to build a list of keywords that will be searched my blog search engines, such as Technorati. This will increase the chances that my blog shows up during search results of keywords like; marketing, social media, healthcare nonprofit, etc. Finally, by bookmarking and/or retweeting my blog entries, readers can help to create awareness and engagement with a broader, and larger, audience on content of mine that they feel is relevant and interesting enough to share with their own piers who may not read my blog directly.
As for future next steps in the development of my blog, I hope to learn how to ingrate my ongoing microblog tweets into my about blog page. I am interested in letting my blog readers see what kind of topics I am tweeting about since I tweet more frequently than I plan to post blog entries. This feed could enhance the engagement aspect for my blog readers and keep them coming back to the page between postings. Additionally, I hope to research, find and use a blog posting scheduler. This will enable me to write multiple postings at one time and simply schedule them for a later date. This resource time saver is critical as it could provide more time to enable more frequent blog posts. More frequency of entries could increase my volume or readers, engagements and allow for more opportunities to carry out my blog strategy of displaying my marketing knowledge and expertise. Additionally, there are a couple of blog functions that I do not plan to utilize. For example, some blog design layouts include a calendar archive by month in the about blog page. I do not think that this function, and the page space that it takes up, is necessary for my blog since it could highlight my low frequency of posts, and I have a completely separate archive page that can be accessed from any of my blog WebPages. Additionally, many of these calendars only display the post dates and not the entry titles. Displaying the archive list by entry title, rather than post dates, will offer greater description of my blog content, purpose and topics for my visitors. Furthermore, aside from comment volumes, I do not plan on publicly displaying the analytics of my blog (as some blogs do, for example, CTR numbers). Although I hope it is a success, low CTR of my entries could counteract my objective and mission of creating an image of credibility and excellence via my blog.

Blogging 101 Presentation Transcript

Marketing with Blogs Kulin Marketing Marketing for Startups www.KulinMarketing.com
Blog Search Engines Understand Blogs by studying others. View a plethora of Blog via search enginesTechnorati - http://technorati.com/ Interface – Navigation bar, side bar, & search results, top blogs of the moment Functionality – Search: blogs, posts, top blogs & twitter buttons Results – by phraseIce Rocket - http://www.icerocket.com Interface – Sm navigation bar, search results, sorting options Functionality – search: blogs, posts & twitter, myspace Results – by keywords
Blog ExamplesSusan G. Komen Low frequency of posts
Livestrong.org
Create Blog, Step #1: Name and urlName your blogwww.yourwebsitedomainname.com/blog Buy the domain from godaddy.com OR if you use Wordpress of Joomla for your main website – add the blog using their plugins.
Step #2: Design/Layout
Step #3: Start Bloggin!
Entry #1
Get Traffic Promote your blog on social networks & via Blog Outreach• Always follow the “Blog Outreach Code of Ethics”• Always disclose yourself• Sign your comment with a link to your blog
Make your Blog Fun to VisitYour blog technology (wordpress or blogger) should have these plug ins
Some Best Practices
To learn more about blogging for marketing visitwww.KulinMarketing.com

Blogging 101

by Kulin Marketing

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Blogging 101 Presentation Transcript